During World War II, Black journalists sought to shape United States’ domestic and international policies to fight Jim Crowism and fascism. This article demonstrates how Claudia Jones, a Trinidadian-born journalist, placed ‘superexploited’ voices at the center of a conversation about nationhood, race, and war politics. Employing a historical and thematic analysis of Jones’ editorials in the Young Communist League’s Weekly Review from 1938 to 1943, the author highlights three themes. This analysis demonstrates how Jones promoted US intervention in World War II by linking Jim Crowism to fascism and promoting military service and transnational solidarity. In centering ‘superexploited’ voices, Jones employed an imperial ‘we’ discourse that intersected racial justice with the Communist Party of the USA’s Popular Front platform. Her journalism complicates historical narratives about alternative journalism, illustrating how voices like Jones at times contributed to the growth of US global power, even while they critiqued its policies.
BiondiM (2003) To Stand and Fight: The Struggle for Civil Rights in Postwar. New York: Harvard University Press.
2.
DaviesCB (2008) Left of Karl Marx: The Political Life of a Black Communist. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
3.
DoreskiCK (2001) ‘Kin in some way’: The Chicago Defender reads the Japanese internment, 1942–1945. In VogelT (ed.) The Black Press: New Literary and Historical Essays. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, pp. 161–187.
4.
DowningJ (ed.) (2011) Alternative media. In: DowningJ (ed.) Encyclopedia of Social Movement Media. Thousand Oaks: SAGE, pp. 16–19.
5.
Du BoisWEB (1935) Black Reconstruction in America 1860–1880. New York: Free Press.
6.
EngelsF (1902) The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State. Chicago, IL: Charles H. Kerr & Company.
7.
GoreD (2011) Radicalism at the Crossroads: African American Women Activists in the Cold War. New York: New York University Press.
8.
HigashidaC (2012) Black Internationalist Feminism: Women Writers of the Black Left, 1945–1995. Champaign, IL: University of Illinois Press.
9.
HillR (1998) Fosterities and Feminists, or 1950s Ultra-Leftists and the Invention of AmeriKKKa. New Left Review1(228): 67–90.
10.
HindsDPrescodCSherwoodM (2000) Claudia Jones: A Life in Exile. London: Lawrence & Wishart.
11.
HumeJ (2011) Building an American story: How early American historians used press sources to remember the revolution. Journalism History37(3): 172–179.
12.
JamesW (1998) Holding Aloft the Banner of Ethiopia: Caribbean Radicalism in Early Twentieth-Century America. London: Verso Books.
13.
JonesC (1938) Recent trends among Negro youth. The Weekly Review, July: 15–17.
14.
JonesC (1940a) Jim Crow in uniform. The Weekly Review, 22July.
15.
JonesC (1940b) The story of bigger Thomas. The Weekly Review, 1February.
16.
JonesC (1941a) No gavel needed: At Negro youth parley. The Weekly Review, 2December: 6.
17.
JonesC (1941b) Quiz. The Weekly Review, 16September: 13.
18.
JonesC (1941c) Quiz. The Weekly Review, 2September: 12.
19.
JonesC (1941d) Quiz. The Weekly Review, 30September: 13.
20.
JonesC (1941e) Quiz. The Weekly Review, 4November: 14.
21.
JonesC (1941f) Quiz. The Weekly Review, 7October: 14.
22.
JonesC (1941g) Quiz. The Weekly Review, 9December: 14.
23.
JonesC (1941h) Quiz. The Weekly Review, 9September: 13.
24.
JonesC (1941i) In the Spirit of Frederick Douglass. The Weekly Review, 17March: 3.
25.
JonesC (1941j) Why Not Negotiate Peace with Hitler?The Weekly Review, 9September: 13.
26.
JonesC (1942a) Eighteen is old enough to vote. The Weekly Review, 22December.
27.
JonesC (1942c) Freedom’s fighters. The Weekly Review, 21April: 26.
28.
JonesC (1942d) He had a dream of freedom: The young Douglass. The Weekly Review, 24February: 7.
29.
JonesC (1942e) James Ford tells about Negro youth. The Weekly Review, 21April: 6.
30.
JonesC (1942f) Know what we’re fighting!: Hitler’s new order. The Weekly Review, 30June: 11.
31.
JonesC (1942h) Poll taxes must go!The Weekly Review, July7.
32.
JonesC (1942i) We fight for freedom. The Weekly Review, 1December: 7.
33.
JonesC (1942k) What we must now do about India. The Weekly Review, 25August: 10.
34.
JonesC (1942l) Your questions answered: How can we win the peace?The Weekly Review, 10March: 13.
35.
JonesC (1942n) Your questions answered: Why shouldn’t wages be frozen?The Weekly Review, 26May: 12.
36.
JonesC (1942o) How Can We Win the Peace?The Weekly Review, 7April: 11.
37.
JonesC (1943a) 18 year-old-vote – An answer to objections. The Weekly Review, 16February: 4.
38.
JonesC (1943b) An O.W.I. Pamphlet. The Weekly Review, 16March.
39.
JonesC (1943c) Beyond duty’s call. The Weekly Review, 15June: 5.
40.
JonesC (1943d) The 18-year vote – From state to state. The Weekly Review, 16March: 8.
41.
JonesC (1943e) The political score. The Weekly Review, 13April: 10.
42.
JonesC (1943f) The political score. The Weekly Review, 20April: 10.
43.
JonesC (1943g) Make ’43 a Victory Year, The Weekly Review, January12: 3.
44.
JonesC (1943h) We need mixed regiments!The Weekly Review, 2February: 2.
45.
JordanWG (2001) Black Newspapers and America’s War for Democracy, 1914-1920. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press.
46.
KaufmanJP (2010) A Concise History of U.S. Foreign Policy. New York: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
47.
KelleyRDG (1990) Hammer and Hoe: Alabama Communists during the Great Depression. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press.
48.
KelleyRDG (1994) Race Rebels: Culture, Politics, and the Black Working Class. New York: The Free Press.
49.
MichaeliE (2016) The Defender: How the Legendary Black Newspaper Changed America from the Age of the Pullman Porter to the Age of Obama. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.
50.
MislanC (2016) Claudia Jones speaks to “half the world”: gendering Cold War politics in the Daily Worker, 1950-1953. Feminist Media Studies: DOI:10.1080/14680777.2016.1178657.
51.
NaisonM (2005) Communists in Harlem during the Depression. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press.
52.
OttanelliFM (1991) The Communist Party of the United States: From the Depression to World War II. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.
53.
PennybackerS (2009) From Scottsboro to Munich: Race and Political Culture in 1930s Britain. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
54.
PhillipsKL (2012) War! What Is It Good For?: Black Freedom Struggles & the U.S. Military from World War II to Iraq. Chapel Hill, NC: The University of North Carolina Press.
55.
PutnamL (2002) The Company They Kept: Migrants and the Politics of Gender in Caribbean Costa Rica, 1870-1960. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press.
56.
PutnamL (2013) Radical Moves: Caribbean Migrants and the Politics of Race in the Jazz Age. Chapel Hill, NC: The University of North Carolina Press.
57.
RaviN (2005) Looking beyond flawed journalism: How national interests, patriotism, and cultural values shaped the coverage of the Iraq war. International Journal of Press/Politics10(1): 45–62.
58.
RhodesJ (2009) The black press and radical print culture. In: NordDPRubinJSHallDDet al. (eds) A History of the Book in America: Volume 5 the Enduring Book, Print Culture in Postwar America. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, pp. 286–303.
59.
SquiresC (2001) The black press and the state. In: AsenRBrouwerDC (eds) Counterpublics and the State. New York: State University of New York Press, pp. 111–136.
